


Just the Same But Brand New

by stereobone



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2019-02-12 10:34:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12957372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stereobone/pseuds/stereobone
Summary: They've lost everything. But not this.





	Just the Same But Brand New

If Loki weren't a liar, he'd admit that the hug is everything to him. Everything. He hasn't touched Thor this way in years. Thor pulls Loki into his shoulder, curls one hand over the back of his neck, the other across his back, and holds. It startles Loki to learn that his eyes are pricking with tears. He blinks them away. He brings his hands up slowly, oh so slowly, somehow fearful Thor will disappear if he moves too quickly, and returns the hug. Thor is as solid a weight as Loki has always known him to be. He smells different, now, like ozone, like a mountain after rain. Loki thinks of him back on the bridge, lightning cracking from his eyes. He shivers. Thor's breath is warm in his hair. If Loki weren't a proud being, he'd whisper the words again, over and over: _I'm here, I'm here, I'm here._

The hug might last five seconds. It might last a month. Five hundred years. Loki can't tell. But when Thor pulls away Loki feels his body lean forward without his permission, as if already missing the feel of Thor against him. Loki catches himself and shifts back, presses his weight into his heels. Thor is smiling.

"And now what, brother?" he says. "Will you help me to find a new home for our people? Or are you to disappear once more?" 

Loki looks down and sees the bottle stopper on the floor. He doesn't remember dropping it. He retrieves it from the floor and tosses it once just to feel something other than Thor, to remember. 

"You think I'd leave now, when you're but a fresh king?" Loki tosses the stopper again. "You forget I have two years of experience on you now. I'll stay, I think." 

Thor's smile broadens. Oh it's so easy, it's so easy for him to forget everything else and welcome Loki back. And it's what he wants, but at the same time, Loki hates him for it.

Thor pours them both a drink. For the first time in a long while, Loki doesn't really feel the need to say anything, so he drinks in silence. Thor is also oddly silent. Every few seconds, he brings his gaze to Loki, that one blue eye, as if he thinks Loki is going to disappear again. Loki wishes he were strong enough to bring their sister back from the dead only to murder her again for taking Thor's eye. It isn't that the patch doesn't suit him. It's that no part of Thor was hers to take. Once he finishes his glass, Loki nods to Thor. 

"Let me see," he says.

Thor takes only a moment to recognize what Loki is demanding. He drains his cup and sets the glass down, sighs. 

"Let me _see_ ," Loki says again.

Then Thor uses his thumb and forefinger to pull the patch away. Loki doesn't expect the sight of it to take his breath away, but his lungs are suddenly seized up. There is but shadow where Thor's eye once lay, like a cavern, or worse, a wormhole. It reminds Loki of the black expanse of space he fell into, of the hole Hela emerged from after Father died, or the emptiness he felt at the loss of Mother.

They've lost everything.

Loki steps closer. Without thinking, he touches the skin around Thor's eye socket, traces the lines there. The skin is just as his fingertips remember it. It isn't until he feels the exhalation of Thor's breath that Loki realizes what he's doing. He rips his hand back. Thor stares, so Loki looks away until he's sure Thor is reapplying the patch. His fingers are tingling. Loki clears this throat.

"So then, where am I to stay while we tumble through space on this ship?" 

"I was thinking you'd share a room with Hulk," Thor says, then his mouth splits into a grin. "But maybe for tonight you can stay here." 

"Here?"

Loki understands that Thor means his room but at the same time, he doesn't understand at all. There's only one bed. A large bed, but only one. Thor scratches absently at the back of his head.

"We've little room on the ship to accommodate everyone," he says. "Our people are already sharing too small a sleeping quarters."

Thor shifts on his feet a moment and drops his hand down to his side. It hangs limp.

"Besides," he adds. "We shared a bed as children, surely we can manage as adults."

"I suppose…" Loki says.

His gaze is trapped between the bed and Thor, between the door and the bed, between the odd nest of fear in his throat and the strong desire he has to curl into Thor again. Thor either doesn't notice his hesitancy, or decides it's not worth commenting on. He squeezes Loki's shoulder.

"Come, brother, if you're as exhausted as I am, we could easily sleep for a week."

To argue at this point would only bring up things Loki isn't ready to talk about yet. He gives in. They ready for sleep and Loki crawls into the bed first, tucks himself against the wall where the bed is pushed against it. When Thor joins him, the weight of him shifts Loki slightly closer. He's certain there's no way he'll be able to sleep like this, but as Thor drifts into sleep, Loki suddenly feels very tired as well. Leaden. He just doesn't want to move. He shifts once under the covers, face to face with Thor. He allows himself to close his eyes and just sleep.

He wakes sometime later because he can _feel_ someone watching him. Loki's eyes slide open. There, in the darkness, Thor watches him. He looks more solemn than Loki's ever known him to be, brows drawn down tight.

"Brother," Loki says. "You're staring, or else sleeping with one eye open."

Thor blinks. "I thought…you said something in your sleep."

"I did not."

Thor shrugs, "I thought you did."

He fluffs his pillow and shuts his eye again, conversation over. Loki watches him in the darkness, waits for him to say what's really on his mind. Moments later, Thor's soft snores fill the room. Loki goes back to sleep.

\-- 

At the rate the ship travels, they'll arrive on earth in just over a month. It's not ideal, but they have enough supplies and food to last them longer. When Thor decides on earth, Loki decides he's lost his fool mind. From what Loki remembers, the planet is a mess. He still cannot fathom Thor's love for humans, small and weak and susceptible as they are. Loki has no desire to rule them—really, he got that out of his system during his rule of Asgard—but he also has no desire to live among them. And there's one other thing: Loki will certainly not be welcome there.

He tries to convince Thor otherwise almost as soon as he makes the announcement. 

"Going against your king already?" Thor says. "I should have known." 

They're on the main bridge of the ship, Thor still seated in the chair that is serving as his throne. It suits him. Loki does not wish to say how much.

"We'd be much better suited to another planet," Loki says. "Sakaar, perhaps."

 Thor shakes his head.

"That planet is more in ruin than earth, brother. And if you think I'm going back to a planet with such awful color schemes, you're wrong. Besides, we've no way of knowing what's become of it after the rebellion against the Grandmaster."

The Grandmaster. Loki can't help the smile his name brings to his face. What an insane man, what a fool. He could have made the planet so much more, but he spent his time staging fights and throwing parties. He'd had the mind of a child, so easy to appease.

Loki realizes Thor is staring at him, at a loss as to why he smiles.

"Would you like to know how I gained the Grandmaster's favor?" Loki asks.

"No," says Thor, voice sharp and final.

Loki feels oddly smaller, suddenly, despite being the one who's standing. He thought Thor would revel in knowing how easily Loki tricked the man. Thor has been surprising him, lately. He's more cunning than Loki remembers, calmer, sure of himself. He's changed. Loki looks out the viewport behind them. They are in a part of space he does not recognize, and Loki has been lost in so much of it.

Korg enters and breaks the silence between them. If he noticed the odd tension in the air, he's ignoring it.

"Hey, um, Thor?" he says. "Just wondering how attached you are to chicken? I think Miek ate it all."

"It's fine, Korg," Thor says. "Let him have it."

"What about ox?" Korg asks.

Thor's eye shifts to Loki again, Loki can _feel_ it, then he stands and follows Korg from the main bridge. Loki stands and watches the stars. He feels something deep in the pit of his stomach, and cannot decide if he likes the feeling or not.

\--

"Tonight," Loki says, after they've supped and put the day behind them. "Where do I sleep?"

"No harm," says Thor, "in another night in my room."

It's the first they've spoken since Thor left the bridge earlier. They walk side-by-side now through the hall, their voices are quiet but echo off the high ceilings. Thor stops walking, and Loki lurches to a halt next to him.

"Don't you think you'd better magic yourself some new clothes?" he says. "I miss your coveted green."

Loki touches the leather of his tunic. He still wears the clothes the Grandmaster had picked for him. In everything that happened the past few days, he'd forgotten about them almost entirely. They feel tight, now that Thor's drawn attention to them.

"You don't approve of Sakaar's fashion, then?" he asks.

"I prefer yours," Thor says.

He smiles and cups the back of Loki's neck, thumb brushing against his throat. Thor used to touch Loki this way all the time, before. His thumb moves over Loki's throat now as if it belongs there, as if nothing changed. Either the ship moves or Loki does, he can't tell. He just feels off balance in a strange way. Loki grabs hold of Thor's forearm to steady himself. Carefully, he removes Thor's hand from his neck.

Before Thor can speak again, Loki changes his clothes, something more akin to what he wore before. Thor's gaze drops down, then up. Then, a smile.

"Come," he says. "Let us rest."

He keeps walking, and Loki, damning himself, follows.

\--

That night, he dreams of home. Of Asgard. In his dream, Loki is walking through his favorite hall on his way to the library, surrounded by golden pillars. Frigga is waiting for him, he knows this somehow. And when he enters the library, there she is, draped in turquoise and golden bracelets. She's found another text for him to read. 

Then the dream shifts and he is a boy still, tricking Thor into trouble or running with Thor from trouble. The two of them hiding from Odin when they've done something wrong.

Loki wakes up and is shocked at the disappointment in his gut. The feeling like some part of him has been taken. He realizes he's pressed himself against Thor, face buried in his chest. Loki holds his breath and shifts over to his side of the bed again. He goes back to sleep. He does not dream.

\-- 

Hulk comes to him. Loki's first reaction is to disappear from view entirely. It's been a few years, but he still remembers the slap of his body on Iron Man's marble floor. It is not a sensation he wishes to revisit. But Hulk deposits himself in a seated position in front of Loki in the part of the ship they normally eat, his presence as nonthreatening as he can make it. Loki squints.

"Thor have bad eye," Hulk says.

"Well, yes," Loki says. "His sister took a blade to it."

Hulk frowns. He is so ludicrously thick Loki wonders if he has a hard time holding his own head up.

"Thor is good friend," he says.

Loki isn't sure how to respond to that, so he doesn't. He'd really rather not talk to Hulk for longer than he has to. He starts inching away, slow and steady. Hulk levels him with his eyes. Loki freezes.

"Loki hurt Thor again," Hulk says.

On instinct, Loki wants to say, _Of course,_ or, _What we do is none of your business, cretin._ And, really, it's not. Not one person on this ship, on earth, in the universe, could understand he and Thor's relationship. At the moment, Loki doesn't understand it himself. He does, however, understand what a poor move it would be to anger Hulk on a metal vessel hurtling through space.

"I've no plans to hurt my brother," Loki says.

He tucks his lip into his teeth and finds that he means it. There was malice there, once, there was such anger—often times there still is—but to actually hurt Thor… Loki can't remember when that stopped being a thing he desired. He jumps when Hulk suddenly stands, looms green. Hulk nods at him, though with all his girth, Loki is unconvinced he doesn't mean it as a threat.

"Loki okay I guess," Hulk says.

He walks away. Loki stays rooted to the spot until Korg tries speaking to him. Then, he blinks from sight.

\-- 

Time passes, though it's difficult to say how much. Space is always black. They sleep when they're tired, count the hours and force a schedule. Thor is a reluctant king, but a good king, Loki is no longer loath to admit it. But it's become impossible now to ignore the way he stares. Any time Loki looks over at him, Thor's eye is on him. And any time Loki looks, Thor looks away. Loki has started to feel his gaze even when it's not there, which is rare, because Thor always seems to be there, as if keeping an eye on him.

The attention makes Loki both uneasy and alive with some nameless pleasure.

The truth is, before Thor came back, he was just so… _bored._ The endless supply of food, of people fawning over him, the plays he'd thrown in his own honor—all good, but after a time, boring. Loki woke each morning to endless goblets of wine and fine cheese and found it all tasteless, unexciting. He told himself it was because he'd been wearing Odin's skin for too long. He could feel the ages weighing on him. Suffocating. But even at night when Loki let the illusion fade he saw himself duller in the mirror, the shine missing from his eyes.

He watched Thor, sometimes. Always at night, always with a certain amount of shame coiled in his gut. Thor on Midgard, quarreling with Jane, bashfully making friends with humans. Thor flying off to other realms, looking for the Infinity Stones. Loki always hated himself a little bit after watching his brother. No matter what, Thor seemed happy, content. Then there was the breakup. There was a certain satisfaction in watching it, in knowing that this was as it should be, because she wasn't good enough for him to begin with. Loki watched Thor that first night he was alone. Thor sat shirtless at the table and rubbed his forefinger across his upper lip. He kept looking up to the stars, as if to call Heimdall, but when he spoke, he didn't address him. He spoke to Loki.

"Brother," he said. "I wish you were here with me now. Despite everything. I really do."

He smiled, a quick twitch of his lips, then it was gone. Loki dispelled the image. He wiped the smoke away and felt his jaw tighten, something in his chest uncurl. Then Loki, being Loki, made himself forget. Thor went on journeying, and Loki closed Asgard off to the other realms, tightened the borders and built himself a fantasy so broad he told himself it would take a millennia to unravel it.

He did not want to see Thor again. But now he's so close, always, and days have passed but Thor has not found Loki a new place to sleep and Loki has not asked for one.

\-- 

It lulls him into a false sense of security, Thor always being so near. He's awoken next to Thor the past eight mornings. He's spent every meeting with him, been asked for counsel. And the Asgardians, they do not look upon Loki as if he is something to be feared. He was far too easygoing as king. Odd enough, Loki doesn't wish to be feared. Revered, yes. Fear, he found, was lonelier than he intended. But it is because of all this, he should have been more aware.

Midday on the ship, Loki can't find Thor anywhere. He checks every room that the Asgardians have huddled in, the ex-prisoners of Sakaar. He checks the bridge. Loki, of course, pretends he is not looking for Thor, but his eyes roam all over. It isn't until he happens by the meeting room that he finds Thor—emerging from a private audience with Heimdall. The meeting room isn't really a meeting room. When they'd first discovered it, there'd been only stocks of guns filled with confetti inside. Only Heimdall asked why, and only because he hadn't met the Grandmaster in person. They jettisoned the guns and used the room for private counsel instead. The moment Thor sees Loki, and the sheepish look that crosses his face is just too much. Thor doesn't trust him. Of course he doesn't. He _shouldn't._ But that doesn't stop some ugly feeling from settling into Loki's spine and sticking there like a stubborn splinter.

"Ah," Loki says, and turns on his heel.

Thor does not follow. Loki hadn't expected him to. At any rate, Loki has made himself invisible to all until he chooses to be seen again.

That time doesn't come until well past what would be nightfall, when Thor has retired to his room— _their_ room—to change for bed. Loki enters the room quiet as a shadow, lithe as always, but Thor still senses his presence. He's undressing. He finishes removing his shirt and Loki watches him toss it over the desk.

"Loki." It's an invitation to speak.

Loki takes his time before speaking. He observes the cuticles of his fingernails.

"Busy day?" he says.

Thor sighs. He watches Loki from the mirror. The skin around his eye patch seems irritated, perhaps, Loki thinks. As if Thor has been rubbing at it.

"You needn't be jealous," Thor says. "Heimdall merely wished to speak with me."

" _Jealous_?" Loki says.

"You've been skulking." Thor turns to him, briefly. "Even hidden from me I know that."

That's the problem with Thor. He knows Loki too well. And Loki's problem is he has nothing left of himself to hide. He is to be Thor's counsel. It was always the plan, even before…even before what happened during Thor's coronation. It still should be. It _is._ Loki can't name why the thought of being left out of it makes his belly hot with rage.

Thor watches him. He has been watching him since Loki returned. Loki has awoken more than once to Thor's eye on him. It clicks into place for Loki, then, like gears fitting together. 

"You're waiting for me to betray you," Loki says. "Isn't that so, brother?"

"I already know one day you will. You are you, Loki."

Thor says this without any pain or sadness. Just a fact he's come to accept. Loki smiles.

"You'd be a fool if you didn't." He hedges into Thor's space now, and when Thor turns to meet him Loki's breath catches but he holds himself strong. "So tell me, then. What is it, brother? Why do you watch me so intently if you already know it? Do you deny it?"

There is silence, then, heavy and demanding silence. There is Thor, so different now, his shorn hair, his clever tongue, but still his brother, still the same Thor he's known. Loki starts when Thor grips his shoulders, shakes him gently.

"Is that why you think I watch you? Distrust?"

"Do not insult me," Loki says, angry for the first time in so long, and it feels oddly good, to be angry. "We both know—"

"If you leave again I won't be able to bear it," Thor says.

Loki's breath abruptly stops. His anger, so bright, is suddenly dull and forgotten. The room falls so quiet Loki isn't certain he's not dreaming. He swallows. 

"Brother—"

"I won't," Thor says. "I never thought I'd see you again, Loki, and every moment my eye is not on you I fear I've gazed upon you for my last."

Loki wishes the hull of the ship would rupture, and they'd be sucked into space to fall forever, because nothing will be more satisfying than this moment right now. He searches Thor's face for signs of a lie and knows he'll find none. There is just acceptance. Beyond that—something sadder. Something inevitable.

"Heimdall senses something," Thor says. "He can't say what, not yet, anyway. We spoke urgently. I didn't think—"

"Of course you didn't." 

Thor's hands are still on Loki's shoulders. He squeezes to the point of pain. Loki welcomes it.

"You're all I have left, Loki," Thor says. "And I'm all you have left."

Loki averts his eyes, but nods, helpless. There's no denying it. Loki presses his toes into the soles of his boots, feels the movement of the ship. He feels Thor's fingers press harder into his shoulder, into the bones there. All this, all this and still, Loki feels uncertain. He lifts his gaze again.

"Then why haven't you touched me?" 

To his credit, Thor only sputters once. 

"I didn't—" he says, one hand moving to Loki's cheek. "Oh, you fool. I did not—I did not know if you still wanted—" 

Loki turns his head and bites Thor's hand. He feels something thick crawl up his throat. He swallows it, easier than he used to be able to. Thor hisses and pulls his hand back, though he doesn't look particularly shocked that Loki's bitten him. He is still every bit an idiot as Loki remembers. Somehow, that is comforting. How could he not know? How could Thor doubt? Loki is too proud to admit that he himself has wondered, unsure. Maybe too much had come to pass between them.

The last time had been so long ago. Oh, they'd been so young then, so different. Right before Thor's coronation, before Loki betrayed him for the first time, Thor had taken him in his chambers. Loki had reveled in him, tangled in his sheets. Thor held him at arm's length because Loki kept trying to suck bruises into his neck so that everyone would _see._ And they'd laughed about it, after, sweaty and oblivious.

There has not been a time since. When would they have discussed it?

"I will say this once, lest you forget," Loki says. "I will always want for you."

He presses his lips together and picks absently at the skin of his palm. He doesn't dare look at Thor. He tries to step away, to leave, but Thor renews his hold on his shoulders.

"Loki," he says.

His voice sounds of thunder. Loki feels the timbre of it in his gut, his spine, his heart. This is who they are. They've lost everything. But not this. They're kissing just like that, Thor's tongue already in his mouth. They both pull at each other to close the space between them. Loki's hands squeeze at Thor's ribs. There is a terrible ache now in his pelvis, so great Loki already can't bear it. He pulls back, aware of how thick the need of his voice will be but unable to care.

"Thor," he says. "I expect you to ruin me." 

Thor throws him onto the bed. Loki bounces once on the mattress and does them the favor of magicking his clothes off. Thor is already pulling at his breeches. The snap of leather makes Loki's cock twitch. When Thor moves on top of him, he is all there is. He is everything. Loki digs his nails into the meat of Thor's biceps and meets Thor for another kiss, mouth open wide as if he will swallow Thor whole. Thor settles on top of Loki and forces his legs open. 

"I won't wait," he says.

Loki feels delirious with pleasure. He laughs, throat exposed, bone white.

It is no surprise to find oil in the room, and no surprise to Loki when Thor breaches him with two fingers, but he still gasps, shudders, kicks his heels into Thor's back. Thor looks shocked.

"Loki," he says. "…You're very tight." 

Thor's fingers move no less frantically. 

"Tell me, has no other had you since I last did?" 

"Wouldn't you like to know," Loki says, flushed, stuttering, but his voice betrays him. 

At that, Thor does pause. He looks down at Loki with an intensity that would make anyone else look away. Loki holds his gaze. 

"Did you really think I'd let that man lay a finger on me?" 

Lightning cracks behind Thor's eye. It's sudden, and Loki jumps. He grabs Thor's hand quickly to bring him back, because if Thor lets his power emerge here they may well all perish. If that's going to happen, Loki would much rather Thor be inside of him first. 

"Brother," he says. "You've been my only." 

Admitting such a thing is not as painful as Loki imagined it might be. And it's satisfaction enough for Thor. The lightning leaves him just like that, but now Loki can see the raw lust in his eye, the possessiveness there. Loki _feels_ it. He feels possessed and finds he does not mind it. Thor growls and removes his fingers from Loki, guides his cock inside him. The girth of it makes Loki's brain snap with memory. One thousands lifetimes pound behind his eyelids, then there is just the hot pressure of being filled, of Thor pressing his forehead against his and groaning. Loki allows himself the tiniest of moans.

Thor grabs Loki's other hand. He pulls both of Loki's hands above his head, traps him. 

"Wrap your legs around me," he says.

Loki does, just in time for the first snap of Thor's hips. It drives them up the bed, and they both laugh. They've broken so many beds together, made so many excuses for them. Once, they broke a table crafted by Thor's grandfather. Volstagg had been blamed. Thor cuts off their laughter by kissing Loki again, all tongue, and his beard is rough and Loki can feel him just everywhere. Everywhere. There was a time he doubted he'd ever have this again. He pushes his hips up to meet Thor's thrusts. They could spend hours like this.

"Release my hands," Loki says. "Let me touch you."

"Do you deserve it?" Thor asks.

His breath tickles Loki's ear, makes him shiver all over. Loki huffs, but comes out as something more pathetic, a keening.

"No," he says. "I don't. But I want it. Thor, I want it—"

Thor releases his hands and Loki reaches up without thinking. He wraps his arms around Thor's neck and clings, jaw pressed to Thor's cheek. Thor has just about physically lifted him from the bed. Loki can feel himself bouncing on Thor's cock, his own tightness, the way he loosens just so for Thor, and this is how it should be, and how it will be. Loki has known little with certainty, but he knows this. He makes a show of his sluttiness, moans into Thor's ear when Thor wraps a hand over his cock and strokes him.

"Come in me," he says. "Fill me up, brother."

Thor's groan shakes both of them. Loki presses his hips down and squeezes, spurs Thor on. Thor is no longer easily goaded in most things, but in this, he still works off pure emotion. They've moved so far up the bed now Loki has to put a hand out behind him against the wall to stop them from going through it. He can't stop the little _ah_ s of pleasure that leap from his throat, or the way his body takes Thor like that's all it was meant to do. Thor bites Loki's neck, his jaw, whispers his name into his skin like some kind of spell. 

It's hearing his name on Thor's lips like that, like Loki has saved him, that threatens to have Loki undone. He feels his orgasm begin to build, and that's when something white hot fills Loki. He screams.

He comes to a few moments later, Thor still inside him, but unmoving. They're both breathing heavily, and Loki feels like he's just witnessed the birth of a star. Thor is shaking against him. Loki can feel his release inside him.

"Did you—"

"I'm sorry," Thor says. "Did I hurt you?"

He wipes Loki's damp hair from his face and caresses the sharp bones of his cheeks, frantic and concerned. But Loki feels wild, alive. He'd felt Thor's power inside him, only a moment of it, but so intense he'd climaxed and not even known it. Thor _electrocuted_ him. 

"I'm sorry," Thor says again, face flushed the most endearing shade of red.

Loki grins wide and kisses him. He pulls back and holds Thor's face close.

"When the time comes that you need beg my forgiveness," he says. "Trust that I'll make it known."

Thor smiles, still brilliant, still golden.

"Yes, brother," he says.

\--

They stay wrapped in the sheets for some time. Thor arranges them so that Loki is draped over him, and Loki does not complain. He slings an arm over Thor's chest and feels a familiar sensation of possessiveness. He likes it. Thor plays absently with Loki's hair. The whole thing is reminiscent of their times together years ago it's almost as if nothing has changed. Almost.

"You really think going to earth is a good idea?" Loki says.

The room is dim, now. Their voices are soft.

"Of course," Thor says. "The people of earth adore me."

"Let me rephrase. Do you think bringing me back to earth is a good idea?"

Loki cranes his neck up. Thor doesn't seem bothered at all.

"Probably not," he says. "But I wouldn't worry, brother. I have a feeling everything is going to be just fine."

"Your little mortal friends will not be pleased."

Thor sits up and Loki moves with him, still tucked against his chest. Thor grabs hold of Loki's jaw and gently tilts upward.

"If you think I'm going to let a little thing like that take you from me…" Thor hums, the promise of it behind his eye, and Loki feels a nameless pleasure in his bones, a thing he dare not call happiness. "Truly, then, you don't know your brother at all."

Thor kisses Loki once, gentle compared to earlier. 

"But I suspect you only wanted to hear me confirm your place with me."

"I suspect you've grown too clever for your own good," Loki says.

He pushes Thor back down on the bed so he can get comfortable against him again. Thor laughs on the way down. He continues to pet Loki's hair.

"Maybe so," he says. "Maybe so."

Loki will take this. He will take this a thousand times over, for a thousand lifetimes. He shuts his eyes and drifts to the feeling of Thor's hand in his hair. He remembers the Tesseract. Thinks, maybe he'll tell Thor this time. Loki only has so much space left he can run to before Thanos finds him, he knows that. Thor kisses his forehead.

"You're thinking," he says. "What are you thinking about?"

Loki considers telling him right now. Thor might have figured it out already, perceptive as he is now. Loki considers, then snakes his hand under the covers and reaches for Thor's cock.

"This," Loki says, squeezing.

He yelps, lips curved into a grin, when Thor pulls him onto his lap as if he weighs nothing, tongue licking a hot stripe up his neck. Loki will tell him later. They have time, now.

He needs to believe they have time.

**Author's Note:**

> title from [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1LHX5chlH0) st. vincent song
> 
> thanks to [marnie](https://twitter.com/thorlokid) and [anu](https://twitter.com/thorIokis) for looking over this. it's been four years since I've written these two, but wow, it's good to dive back in ♥
> 
> on twitter @stereoroo


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